Literal

Computers are literal. Computers do not understand "maybe." Sometimes it looks like they do because of some programming slight of hand. However, when you get down to the bottom of the stack, the result is either "0" or "1". Not much room there for ambiguity.

Things match or they do not match. They are equal or they are not equal. The best a programmer can do is move the line so that more things match or fewer things match. That is what "fuzzy" searching is all about. The simplest example is to have case not matter so that "home" matches "Home". Those only match if we first normalize the input to upper or lower, then test the equality.

I've said all that so it becomes clear why human beings are the curse of programmers and the savior for some decision making.

First of all, the curse. Human beings are notorious for hating normalization. We will assert our individuality and fuck you very much. So, an street might be be input as "Broadway Blvd." or "Broadway" or "Broadway Boulevard" or "Brdwy" or any of a billion other personal quirks or local convention. There is always going to be a point where the computer will not be able to tell that the street is the same as "Broadway Blvd". It is impossible to stop people from avoiding normalization. A computer just does not have the ability to test arbitrary text for proper content and form in all conditions.

That brings us to the savior. Human decisions will also boil down to "0" or "1". Something will be deemed true or false. The difference lies in that human beings have the ability to shift the matching algorithm on the fly. We do it even while we say we aren't. It is the founding brick of "moral relativism".

All that said to get to this point. There is an education gap. The common user does not know that the computer can't do what human do. We want to type in our garbage input and have the computer understand what we really meant and give us meaningful results. We are doomed to disappointment!